“They’re in that mentality of, ‘What’s the next goal? What’s the next goal?’ So we throw in some things that slow you down again and force you to gain this playful aspect that you otherwise wouldn’t have.” “They flip it and they’re on to the next bit,” Phil continued. “People start playing and think, ‘Okay, well it’s just turning pages.’ And you start to see people get very…” “The intention is to challenge assumptions,” said Phil. On an unconscious level, it’s an exercise in mindfulness. Puzzles like this kind of prompt you to start being playful and curious with the pop-up to go back and forth and look into it.” On a mechanical level, it’s basic puzzle-solving. They force you to think, okay, why am I changing the world here? What is it that I’m trying to achieve? Whereas in some of the puzzles we hide things in between the folds themselves. “There are some puzzles where you swap out parts of the world several times. “A lot of people are very quick with the flipping,” Jennifer explained to me. Players lacking such natural curiosity sooner or later must take it slow by necessity. And in fact, much of the work that went into Tengami was focused around building an engine that could render the intricate folds of the popup structures. Its architectural intricacies lead you to wonder at the craftsmanship, and perhaps fold and unfold it with more consideration for the work that went into it. Eventually you come across a large shrine. Most demo-ers do so quickly and without feeling. Its introductory stage is deceptively spare other than the main puzzles, most of your options for interaction are bits of foliage scattered about, which you can fold and unfold. It’s tempting to take Tengami at face value. Everything’s meant to reinforce that idea.” The almost meditative action that you do-they’re all quite slow and deliberate. It would kind of go against the whole experience. From the beginning we didn’t really want to have an explicit story that we tell the player. “The experience you bring to it is what influences what you take away from it. According to Phil, Tengami is an interpretive work. Jennifer is Nyamyam Games’ co-founder, alongside fellow RARE alum Phil Tossell. “The game doesn’t have a literal story,” says Jennifer Schneidereit. But beneath the simple conceit lies complexities, much like the intricate mechanisms folded within the pages of a pop-up book. The central mechanic is simple: tap the screen to guide your avatar through a pop-up book world, using concise finger swipes to fold and unfold architecture, pieces of landscape, and the pages of the game world’s foundation. In that regard, Tengami is far more of a “Zen game” than people realize. The point is not to solve a riddle, but to open yourself to new ways of thinking. Just as a good short story has no one definitive interpretation, Zen koans are not meant to have one true answer. Salinger famously used as the epigraph to Nine Stories : “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”īut beneath the simple conceit lies complexities, much like the intricate mechanisms folded within the pages of a pop-up book. The most famous example is a Chinese k?an J.D. Typical Zen meditation entails intense concentration over seemingly simple k?ans. “Zenning out” implies “zoning out”-but in reality, Zen tradition involves very little of that. To many, “zenning out” involves relaxing laying in the bath and listening to Brian Eno, or staring at a looping optical illusion with the aid of a liberally packed bowl. Zen: today the word evokes a waiting room at a spa, complete with scented candles and a trickling plug-in fountain. This unique effect is what has led many to label Tengami a “Zen game.” My eyes followed the violet veins of ink that bled skyward in the background, and the faraway hustle and bustle of the hundreds of gamers all around me faded more quickly than I had anticipated. As he walked, I listened to the wind and to the snow crumbling under his wooden sandals. The anxiety that fueled my desire to demo every game on the floor that weekend was almost forcibly quieted by my avatar’s patient, measured paces. Sound-canceling headphones erected a barrier between me and the packed show floor. I first played Tengami on an iPad at IndieCade East last February.
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